The Unquiet Dead Have Arisen

I love the dead before they're cold.

Their bluing flesh for me to hold.

Cadaver eyes beyond me see...

Nothing.

(Alice Cooper 1973)

In my ongoing pursuit to work out what figures I own, I've I laid out my Unquiet Dead: The Danse Macabre to get an understanding of how many there are and exactly what I have. As it turns out there are not as many as I thought, but I do have quite a few still on the sprue (so to speak) waiting for me to make and paint them.

All of these figures are individually based and I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing at this stage. I originally made this army for SAGA - Age of Magic and I'm inclined to think of it more for this type of large skirmish game such as Dragon Rampant rather that a full on big battle game. I don't even know what some of the units are or how they would fit into a large army yet. But I'll work that out some time later.

I've kept the colour pallet of this army very washed out. I want it to look misty and insubstantial. This isn't easy to do with physical models. My solution is to go for a lack of colour and heavy dry-brushing using very pale greys on top of very heavy dark washes.

Obviously the top photo is the whole army as it currently stands. It's made up of figures from a variety of companies. The chaps below are Wraiths from Reaper Miniatures. These are actually glow-in-that-dark Reaper Bones that I painted. I've used them as a Wraith King and Hearthgurad in Saga - AoM. In a big battle game I'm not sure what the "hearthguard" would be. Captains and hero characters most likely.

My cavalry is pretty dismal being just this single box of FireForge Undead Knights. Not bad figures but somewhat uninspiring and static. The guys in front are newly painted Oathmark Undead Revenants. Nice figures. They have a nice ancient dead vibe and could be used as regular fantasy troops with just a head-swap.

The main body of the army is made of these GW figures. I've stated in previous posts that I got a bunch of cheap GW undead. I added to these ones last year when GW brought out a magazine that was going for $8.99 with a sprue of these figures included. I bought a few of them to boost numbers and still have 40 more figures to add to the army. I intend to use these and a ghostly hoard. I currently have 60 of them painted.

A bat swarm made using Reaper Bones bats. I also have half a dozen giant bats that I could fit into the army somehow. More on the enthroned eyeball figure later.

Another unit - this time axmen - from the Oathmark Undead Revenants box. Again; these look great and a simple head-swap could see these figures as regular ancient fantasy troops or even orcs.

Another unit made from the GW magazine series. These are really lovely figures and I think they're some type of banshee or other howling spirit. I'm not sure how they fit into the army yet but they look really nice.

Some more GW from my initial cheap purchase (a couple of years back). I don't know what they are supposed to be but they're nice looking models.

I have a second one of these undead knight figures and I just recently did some conversion on it so that it's carrying a spear with a banner. It's based and undercoated and it's awaiting it's first coat of paint. I was going to wait until it was done before doing this post but then I thought: Why bother? 

A Bone Dragon (I think) from Reaper. This is another Bones figure and fits well with the rest of the army. As usual these large Bones monsters are great value for money.

This an old CItadel figure from the late 80's early 90's called Souron: Lord of the Rings. I had it for many years still in the blister pack and only painted it last year. It's a great figure but not exactly how I picture The Dark Lord on his Dark Throne! However, this figure could add a lot to the army as a necromancer or spell caster. What I need to do is mount it better. Maybe put him on some sort of wagon or mobile dais with a compliment of dead 'uns to serve him.

I made these movement bases to create hoard units. Each base has 15 figures so the 60 that I've finished will make up 4 units. I'm not sure if this will work or not. They do look okay but, as stated, I'm unsure how I want to use this army at this time.

Finally there's this guy. I haven't included him in the other pics. It's an undead troll from Mantic Games. The figure looks okay but I'm not sure if it will work with the rest of the army.

To finish off: a few pics that better show off some of the detail on the Oathmark Revenants.